Back on the acquisition trail, Oracle announced plans Monday to acquire North Carolina-based Tekelec. The company provides network signaling, policy control, and subscriber data management solutions for communications networks. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Oracle is equipping itself for the future -- and the now -- with its latest acquisition. The company pointed to the proliferation of smart devices, mobile applications, and connected services, which has led to an exponential increase in network signaling and data traffic.

"As connected devices and applications become ubiquitous, intelligent network and service control technologies are required to enable service providers to efficiently deploy all-IP networks, and deliver and monetize innovative communication services," said Bhaskar Gorti, senior vice president and general manager of Oracle Communications.

Managing and Monetizing

Oracle wants to offer service providers the intelligent network control technologies they need to address these booming network workloads as well as to deploy and monetize cloud and over-the-top services. Gorti is convinced that the combination of Oracle and Tekelec will breed the most complete solution to manage businesses across customer engagement, business and network operations, service delivery and end user applications.

Tekelec has found success in the marketplace with its technology that paves the way for service providers to deliver, control and monetize personalized communications services. More than 300 service providers in over 100 countries already use Tekelec's services.

Some of Tekelec's core products include network signaling (Diameter and SS7), policy control and subscriber data management solutions. Oracle said these technologies complement Oracle Communications' mission-critical operational support systems, service delivery platforms, and business support systems.

"In an increasingly mobile and social world, customer experience is about optimizing network performance and personalizing services based on what engages, moves, and inspires people," said Ron de Lange, president and CEO of Tekelec, which is based in Morrisville, N.C. He expects the acquisition to "accelerate the pace of service innovation by helping service providers transform the way they manage and monetize the explosive growth in signaling and data traffic on their networks."

Mobile Broadband Horizons

We caught up with Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst at ZK Research, to get his take on Oracle's latest acquisition. He told us, first of all, he's surprised that the acquisition cost wasn't high enough to mandate public disclosure. Tekelec, after all, has a significant client base internationally.

"Tekelec is not a network vendor, but it is certainly an important part of the telecom world," Kerravala said. "Clearly, people are doing more with mobile devices rather than less. When you look ahead at personalized services, it's pretty clear the mobile device could soon be the most important device we use."

Although talk of BYOD and mobile broadband is nothing new, Kerravala said Oracle has bought into a telecom company at the beginning of the mobile Internet age. He expects to see more acquisitions from Oracle to help the company move into the telecom space, especially with the explosion of mobile Internet services on the horizon.

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